I had not realised his career and that of his pal Ben Affleck were basically on the skids until they turned to screenwriting and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay with Good Will Hunting in 1997. It achieves #11 on the list. The last two are 1990s movies which I have not seen. #18 is Syriana which I did enjoy. #13, #14 and #15 are three of probably his best-known movies - The Martian, Saving Private Ryan and Oppenheimer in that order.

Perhaps inevitably the first three in his Bourne series come in at #10, #5 and #3. Thankfully his last one titled simply Bourne, in my view the worst, is not on the list.

But two of my favourites are there. Behind the Candelabra comes in at #6. And for me the most fascinating and the one i enjoyed almost the most is The Talented Mr. Ripley which is there at #1. The Ripley movie is out on Netflix in mid-January. Perhaps of interest is that Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role given to Damon. And Jude Law took a lot of persuaion to sign for the Dickie Greenleaf role. He did not want to be playing what he thought would be a "pretty boy" role - something he stated later was "insane arrogance" on his part.

A econd Ripley movie was made with Ripley now living in a mansion in Italy as an assassin with John Malkovich in the lead. The novelist Patricia Highsmith wrote four Ripley sequels and all were made into much less good early movies or later TV series. The Malkovich movie Ripley's Game was in fact based on the third in that series. I wish the director Antony Minghella could have been persuaded to make a second with the adventures of Matt Damon as he develops his role as a serial killer.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/08/matt-damons-best-films-ranked

Most may recall My Private idaho where he plays a gay street hustler for which he received several accolades. For one so relatively young, I had no idea he was in 16 mostly major movies. These are discussed in an article in Thursday's Guardian newspaper.

Three decades ago, queer parts for straight-identifying actors were still thought of largely as awards bids (see William Hurt’s transparently covetous performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman) or career-killers (even at the end of the 1990s, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio all turned down Brokeback Mountain). In that context, the boldness of Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in unselfconsciously playing sex workers in My Own Private Idaho, a kind of Midnight Cowboy cross-pollinated with Shakespeare’s Henry plays, should not be underestimated.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/06/james-dean-has-got-nothing-on-that-kid-river-phoenix-films-ranked

A composer who has warned that the Broadway musical is in "dire danger" is none other than one who has made tens if not hundreds of millions of $$ from his shows worldwide - Andrew Lloyd Webber. His reasoning? 

“The painful truth is that, with things as they are, bringing almost any new show to Broadway makes little financial sense,” said Lloyd Webber.

“The costs are immense. Creators, writers and directors are often forced to accept minimal royalties simply to get work staged . . . The situation is scarcely better for investors. Many count themselves fortunate if they recover even part of their money. Without investors willing to take risks, and artists able to make a living, where will Broadway’s next generation of shows come from?”

Well, Lloyd Webber has always had a tendency to imbide a little more wine than perhaps he should, and perhaps his comments resulted from the fact that his latest musical is closing after only 5 months on Broadway. I suppose he's more than a bit miffed considering Phantom of the Opera ran of Broadway for 35 years and CATS for 18 years. His royalties from these productions alone made him a gazillionaire.

Mind you, the show that is closing had a lot going against it. First being named Cats: The Jellicle Ball will likely have put off the millions who had seen the original CATS productions. However, far more likely was the ghastly more recent movie version of the show which got some of the worst reviews ever for any movie.

And then there is the fact that in December 2013, in an interview with Paybill he is quoted as saying, "I haven't had a hit on 20 years . . . I've written six musicals in that time." Following Phantom his next big blockbuster was supposed to be Sunset Boulevard in the early 1990s. Despite running for three years, he kept the show open despite its losing around US$6 million and the investors losing all of their cash. (USTV interviewer Barbara Walters lost all her investment of $250,000 on that one!) This was not helped by compensation he had to pay out when taken to court by actors Patti Lupone and Faye Dunaway.

Broadway has always had its ups and downs. Rodgers and Hammerstein had a lengthy run of popularity, as did Lloyd Webber and his producer Cameron Macintosh in the last quarter of the last century. Others will arise and, as when the Sonheim musicals were in vogue, these will not need the massive Phantom-type scenery and such massive budgets. And Lloyd Webber might be wise to recall that his show's recent $18 million loss is almost peanuts against the $75 million loss on Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark!

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/14/andrew-lloyd-webber-cats-jellice-ball-broadway

Brought up in the grime of northern England still recovering from the deprivations of the Second World War, in 1961 aged 24 he discovered California, the year after he realised he himself was gay. He was entranced and mystified, amazed that there was a gay scene and a freedom he could never find in England of that time. He enjoyed everything, even just looking around at the houses and the swimming pools, especially the pools. Arguably his most famous painting is a A Bigger Splash, a very 'sparse' painting with as its subject the eruption of water made by someone who has just dived into one of these pools. Much of that painting was inspired by two photographs he had seen in books.

Another 'pool' painting from 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is his most expensive work to date having sold for US$90.3 million in 2018.

In a BBC website commentary today Dominic James Bilton, the co-leader of the Queer British Art Network, said -

Of his early works,  "Those works are so queer, so sensual and sexy and playful and joyous," adding they also show the "domesticity" and "dull aspects of gay relationships". Hockney was "normalising same-sex relationships... that we take for granted", Bilton suggests, adding the artist showed that gay people "are just normal people... doing normal stuff, looking at our partners and thinking: 'oh, you're beautiful'".

And as an article in today's Guardian points out - 

Being gay was just part of the truth he lived and painted. It wasn’t a big deal and he’d be upset if we remembered him as “Britain’s first openly gay artist”. It’s exactly his relaxed and untroubled depiction of a sexuality that was illegal in early 1960s Britain that makes his art so insouciantly subversive. From his splashy 1960-1 painting Doll Boy that confesses to his passion for Cliff Richard (“very attractive, very sexy”) to a composed 1968 portrait of a mature and confident couple, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, the development of Hockney’s art in that decade of revolution is very much about finding the right style to show gay life as it is.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq393dz535o

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/12/david-hockney-death-tribute-feast-visual-pleasure

Having decided this was a movie he wanted to make, the young Belgian director wondered how on earth he would cast it. One day on a Belgian train he found himself seated next to a group of school kids all chattering and laughing. One stood out for him, one of the most animated and with the most amazing eyes. He asked the boy if he would be interested in a casting session and then discussed it with his mother. This boy was then cast as the main protagonist in the film, Leo, whose eyes tell much of the story. 

I don't want to give too much away, but the first 15 minutes or so of the movie are about Leo and his best friend Remi, about how they play together one summer holiday, have fun together as all kids do and even sleep over in Remi's bed. It is extremely beautifully filmed. There is nothing sexual here. But when they both go to the same secondary school, their close friendship attracts attention, the sort that Leo finds difficult to accept. I will go no further as that will give the rest of the story away. I will just say again it is a beautifully filmed, amazingly powerful movie. The review which I post here does have the spoiler so be prepared to look away at this point if you do not want to know what happens. The movie was shown two weeks ago on True Visions but ridiculously in French without English sub-titles. I have heard from True that it will be shown again towards the end of April with sub-titles.

It took 12 years to make , what a fantastic movie 

Thanks to the director Dick Linklater 

Yet he was at heart always the peasant lad he had been born into in Siberia. Uneducated, uncouth, boastful of his talent and according to many not much fun to be with. Yet he could be incredibly generous. When Fonteyn was diagnosed with cancer, he paid for all her treatment till her death. Graduating to Leningrad's Kirov Ballet aged 20 he quickly became its star. He was silky, mercurial but also gay - very gay. He visited gay bars as regularly as he was seen at gay bathhouses. He did not really care with whom he had sex. It was the sex itself he craved.

On a tour to Denmark he met a fellow dancer working for the Royal Danish Ballet. Eric Bruhn was to became the love of his life, one constant in his incedibly hectic career after he defected from the Soviet Union and caused a sensation in 1961. Although the relationship only continued for five years, they remained close friends until Bruhn's death in 1986. There were other lovers and with all Nureyev continued his extra-partnership gay lifestye during their times together.

For years Nureyev denied that in 1984 he had been diagnosed with HIV. Even so he continued dancing, continued his gay lifestyle. It was around early 1991 that the effect of AIDS was taking its toll. Yet he continued with a World Tour. He died in January 1993 and is buried in Paris.

Rudolf Nureyev, incredible dancer, rebel, gay icon would have celebrated his 88th birthday last week.

Like so many, I really enjoyed his performance in Call Me By Your Name. Increasingly since then, I find him - frankly - boring. I also have little respect for anyone who says he wants to be the GOAT. You can have achieved the acclamation of GOAT but to state that as your goal in your professional life for me is a definite no-no! This is what he said after he won for the movie A Complete Unknown at last years SAG Awards -

“I can’t downplay the significance of this award because it means the most to me, and I know we’re in a subjective business, but the truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness,” Chalamet said. “I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats."

And who can respect anyone who says he is going out with Kylie Jenner? As one commentator has asked, is that just a stunt to prove he is probably not gay?

https://www.onstageblog.com/editorials/2026/1/5/timothe-chalamet-wants-to-be-the-goat-and-im-here-for-it

At Vue's flagship cinema in London's Islington, precisely one ticket has been sold so far for the first showing and two for the second. But never fear, things are looking up for the cinemas in Wandsworth and Broughton where - wait for it - four and five tickets have been sold for the first showings. But then the five in Broughton are all the cheapest seats in the back row! Poor Richards. Totally on the back foot he spins, "We do not play judge and jury to censor films." No doubt that is true, but there are plenty of examples of movies which were first denied showings in cinemas. Why this one? Stupid question, I guess.

Ah! But then we should not forget. Amazon paid US$40 million for the rights to make the movie, a fair chunk of that no doubt going to its subject. Amazon is also spending US$35 million on a worldwide marketing push.

At least one potential reviewer has labelled the movie "Must Watch!" and tickets "Selling out Fast!". That can hardly be of much consolation to the subject of the movie as those predictions were made by - the Donald! No doubt he will be waiting expectedly for the announcement of next year's Oscar nominations!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/26/melania-trump-documentary-uk-cinemas-vue-soft-sales

Faced with a lover who is dying of AIDS, Scott Page recalled that his partner had a good term life insurance policy which would pay out on his death, at which time it would do him no good whatever. Short on cash, Scott placed an advertisement in the local paper to see if someone would buy his partner's policy in return for an advance. One did, and a reduced amount was agreed, thereby enabling his partner to live out what remained of his life in relative comfort. Page recalls how the money transformed his boyfriend's life as the stress of money worries vanished.

Many of those dying of AIDS did not have lovers and partners in the 1980s. With the US Federal Government downplaying the AIDS crisis and refusing medical advances recommended by the CDC, so Greg tried to set up a form of brokerage. Banks and credit unions refused to help, telling him that insurance monies should go to beneficiaries, not the dying. Yet it was the beneficiaries who had walked away from their dying sons! So he approached small time investors. Ironically the sicker the patient, the quicker the windfall payout. 

As the young gay documentary director, 26-year old Matt Nadel recalls, it was members of the African American community who really suffered at this time as few had any form of life insurance. He knew, because he learned in 2020 that it was his father Phil who had been an early investor buying up these policies. The full documentary can be seen within the link below.

A still from the movie - Photo: The New Yorker

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/21/cashing-out-documentary-short-aids-profiteering

OK, not a sex XXX but damn good. Good show and good acting. Well, good acting for this kind of movie. It was based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novel series which I read a few several years back. I really enjoyed it. 

In our more recent times, unquestionably at the top of my list would have been Alan Rickman who died ten years ago of pancreatic cancer. A stalwart of the British stage before his breakout movie role as the villain in the first Die Hard movie, from the Judge in the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility, Love Actually, the bewitching Perfume; the Story of a Murderer, with the young gay actor Ben Whishaw, through the role that most around the world will recall, Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, his voice was unmistakable - a deep, rich, glowing, sometimes growling voice with, whenever required, a hint of menace.  

What we did not know was much about the actor himself for, like many, he preferred to remain in the background. In today's Guardian there is a lovely article with comments from a number of actors and others who worked with him including Sigourney Weaver, Brian Cox and screenwriter Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary). It paints a portrait of an extraordinary human being.

I think his last performance in Eye In The Sky one of his best. A world weary British army general utterly torn between his men seeking to kill terrorists far off in Kenya by means of drone strikes and his political masters who cannot make a decision. With the objective finally obliterated although with the additional cost of civilians, as he leaves the cabinet room one parliamentarian tells him the casualties were just part of war. To which his character turns and stares equally wearily at the lady before his final line. It could have been said angrily, menacingly in any number of ways. Rickman says it in an almost matter-of-fact way but you can hear the hate lurking in that voice. "Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war." He was literally dying when he completed that movie.

A few comments (deliberately unattributed) -

-  Whenever he’d ring me on speakerphone in my car and someone else was with me their eyes would nearly pop out of their head. That amazing voice! The depth and richness and enunciation.

- Alan elevated friendship to an art form. His friends grew in number throughout his extraordinary career but he never dropped his old pals in favour of more starry ones. 

- He taught me a great deal about charity [said by one of the boys in Harry Potter]. He would often have half a dozen people visit the studio each day, and would claim they were his cousins or friends. Really, he was offering terminally ill children and their families a chance to see behind the curtains. 

- His death was such a theft from us; this brilliant, gorgeous actor, who had so much more to give, was suddenly gone. Although I was one of the close friends who was privy to Alan’s illness and visited him as he faded, I could not reconcile myself to his absence . . . Alan was undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest actors. His distinctive languid voice and his sublime ability to embody the characters he played made him truly exceptional.

- The most loving, generous man in the world, with such charm he made everyone weak at the knees. Such wit, such a sense of humour and kindness that surpassed anything I had ever witnessed before.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/14/i-fell-in-love-with-him-on-the-spot-alan-rickman-remembered-10-years-after-his-death

In Japan during December and to celebrate the upcoming year, virtually every orchestra gives performances of Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy.” So on this first day of 2026 it is appropriate to play just a small part of it. But this is a special performance that was created by one of Europe’s most influential choreographers Maurice Bejart who happened to have been born exactly 99 years ago today.

Bejart decided the Symphony is so universal with its themes of brotherhood and unity it should include dance as an essential visual element to add to the symphony orchestra, four soloists and large chorus. So he created a version to be performed in the round having added 90 dancers that was first performed in Belgium in 1964. Bejart called his “a Ninth Symphony for the 20th century.” The packed audience gave it 16 minutes of applause.

Since a performance requires around 300 artists in total and a very large stage, Bejart’s version has only rarely been performed. In 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of its creation, it was given a unique performance in Tokyo. It was unique in the sense that it involved not just Bejart’s company which is now based in Lausanne. Never before had it co-operated with another dance company. For this performance which took almost three years of preparation, consultation and finally rehearsals, the Tokyo Ballet company (with its fabulous looking male dancers!!) was integrated fully into the performance. That company also just happened to be celebrating its 50th anniversary that year. 

This is just a short three-minute excerpt from the start of the second movement with dancers from the Bejart Ballet – yes, the gorgeous Japanese male soloist is part of that company, not the Tokyo Ballet. To me, it is extraordinary not only that Beethoven was deaf when he composed the symphony but how in his dramatic interpretation Bejart has captured the humanity of  Beethoven’s masterpiece. You can just make out Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra raised behind the dance floor.

For those interested, the full performance with a prologue can be seen here. The Symphony proper starts at 8’00” and the boys and girls of the Tokyo Ballet are featured in the first and last movements. Just click on the youtube link.

I was a little shocked when the newsreader announcing her death said she was once in trouble making homophobic sluts 😲🏳️‍🌈

http://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/4663/article5.pdf?sequence=1

Based on the trailer and what I have read, I'm not sure this is a pic I want to see. Although he is fast becoming a great actor Chalamet is nothing like his previous roles, definitely not a cutie. 

In the USA, Walt Disney's widow had given the Los Angeles Philharmonic US$50 million as the lead donation for the construction of a new concert hall in downtown LA. After much wrangling, Gehry was chosen as the architect. Again using titanium, the building was opened in 2003 and has since become a landmark in the city.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall 

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/05/style/architect-frank-gehry-dies

Photo: United Artists

It started us discussing not merely art theft but stolen art (of which the Nazi hierarchy were probably the best) and art which is kept from public view in the homes of the mega-rich. Many major stolen artworks have never been recovered. These include works by Picasso, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Raphael, Cezanne and Monet. Indeed the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and lost for 2 years before turning up in Florence.

From there the discussion became complicated over what constitutes great art. The work of so many artists which fetch tens of millions of $$ at auction nowadays was worth cirtually nothing when it was created. Indeed, some was given away as a means of paying off debts.

And the provenance of some is not even absolutely certain. The world's most expensive painting is the Salvador Mundi which sold to an anonymous buyer for over US$450 million in 2017. It's currently displayed in the Louvre Gallery in Abu Dhabi. It reached that price because it was one of the only available paintings by Leonardo da Vinci. But did he paint it? Experts are split. Most seem to agree that his students painted much of the work with Leonardo adding in only certain parts. 

The second most expensive painting is Willem de Kooning's Interchange. It cost US$300 at auction in 2015. When finished in 1955, de Kooning sold it for $4,000!

What makes this worth such a monstrous amount, I have not the faintest idea. A child could surely have painted it. Although owned by a private individual, the public can at least view it as it is loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Artefacts are similarly in private hands, only some available for viewing. I remember my first visit to New York in 1978. On my list of things to do was a visit to the Forbes Building (since 2015 part of New York University) where 9 of the exquisite Faberge Eggs were displayed behind glass in the lobby. Faberge was one of the most lauded jewellers of his or any time. The last 2 Tsars had commissioned him to make a special Egg as an Easter gift for their wives. Many contained other jewelled trinkets, one including a working tiny train. Anyone could go in to the Forbes Building to see them. I have been fascinated by these creations since I first became aware of them and have seen several others, including the 3 in the British Royal Collection. I always wondered why the Soviet Union allowed these treasures to leave the country. It turned out that about 10 years after the Revolution Stalin was desperate for foreign currency. So he raided the country's treasures which had been crated up after the Revolution. One of his friends was the oil billionaire Armand Hammer. Thus Hammer came into possession of many of the Eggs along with a large number of other treasures at virtually knock-down prices.

Originally the Eggs were regarded as little more than mere trinkets. One sold for just US$500. As the value of the Eggs plummeted further during the Great Depression, one of Hammer's friends rather ironically observed that whilst indisuptably beautiful, you could not eat them! I have no idea where Forbes got his Eggs but it is known that Stalln's thugs sold 14 of them.

Photos: wikipedia

By the time of Forbes' death, he had added another 3 to his collection, But his sons did not want them and put the Eggs up for auction. Before the sale, a Russian oligarch purchased the lot for US$100 million. In 2013 he opened a Museum in St. Petersburg where they are now displayed. It boasts more than the 10 which remain in the Kremlin Museum in Moscow.

Our discussion had been started as a result of an article in yesterday's Guardian newspaper about a squillianaire Stefan Soloviev  who finally opened the door to the private New York art collection mainly purchased by his late father. At 9 West 57th Street, a small group waited to be ushered in to see a treasure trove that includes masterpieces by Picasso, Matisse, four by Cezanne, three by Miro, a Henry Moore statue and other paintings by Giacometti and Van Gogh. Many of the artworks are owned by a non-profit Foundation which means they are suppposed to be exhibited publicly. Until yesterday, they could only be seen through thick windows, unlike the Forbes Faberge Eggs which were very tastefully lit behind almost invisible glass. Many more existing private collections avoided tax through the Foundation route. Hopefully more of their artworks wil be displayed publicly sooner rather than later. 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/jul/11/soloviev-collection-billionaire-private-art-museum-new-york

He had first tried his hand at journalism and then theatre criticism before turning to writing. His body of work for film, TV and radio was hugely impressive. He won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, as well as five Tony Awards in the USA and three Olivier Award in the UK. Other screenplays included John Le Carre's The Russia House and Terry Gilliam's Brazil. He also assisted other writers of screenplays by adding sparkle to their scripts, often without acknowledgement. These included Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Star Wars episode Revenge of the Sith. Steven Spielberg even consulted him on Schindler's List.

His writing was witty and playful, he took ideas seriously and delighted in philsophical and political argument. 

Among those who mourn his passing is Sir Mick Jagger who wrote on X hat he was "a giant of the theatre. He leaves us with a majestic body of intellectual and amusing work. I will always miss him." Lyricist Sir Tim Rice wrote he "is in awe of nearly everything" Sir Tom did, adding "He's written at least half a dozen, probably twice that, plays that will live for a long, long time – however brilliant plays are, a lot of them don't last long beyond their era, but I think Tom Stoppard's will, no question." The National Theatre called his contribution to British Theatre "simply immense".

Born in Czechosolvakia, he was Jewish and fled to the uK after the Nazi invasion. All four of his grandparents died in the holocaust.

London's West End Theatres will dim their lights for two minutes at 7:00pm on December 2 as a mark of respect.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74xe49q7vlo

Yet another anniversary. This time the 40th since what was to become the winner of the Best Oscar was first shown, director Milos Forman's adaptation of the Peter Shaffer play Amadeus. On the face of it, the movie is about the rivalry that existed between the conventional and somewhat boring Viennese Court Composer Antonio Salieri and a young composer brought from the Court at Salzburg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the movie, that rivalry leads to near hatred with Salieri responsible for Mozart's early death at the age of 36. Salieri then goes mad.

Like several other issues in the play and the film, that is dramatic licence for there is no evidence that Mozart's death was caused in any way by Salieri. That the two thoroughly disliked each other initially is fact. That Salieri was intensely jealous of Mozart's extraodinary talent compared to his own much more modest accomplishments is mostly fact. That Salieri blamed God for giving such gifts to such a silly and uncouth boy is another truth. Mozart may not have been quite as childish as shown in the movie, but he was no young saint. He enjoyed visiting the taverns in town, he wrote scatalogical references in many of his letters and even penned a series of musical pornographic canons (a canon being a musical device). One starts with the line "Lick me in the arse, quickly, quickly!", basically an 18th century verson of "Lick My Ass".

Not shown in the movie is that Salieri on the other hand was equally no saint as attested by his wife, eight children and mistress. And the rivalry can not have been that serious given that Mozart entrusted the musical education of his son to Salieri.

In today's BBC website, there is a long article about the movie and especially about Milos Forman's return to communist Czechoslovakia to film most of the movie in Prague, the city where Mozart spent several years and where several of his major works received their premiere. It even suggests that certain elements in the film reflect communist society before glasnost started to tear the Soviet Union apart.  The writer even suggests -

Forman's aim for Amadeus can be seen as radically different from a typical biopic, and that was to use a fictionalised version of an epic clash between musical composers to allegorise the defining global rivalry of the mid-to-late 20th Century: the Cold War. Put simply, the film may have played fast and loose with 1784 because its real preoccupation was 1984 . . .

The Soviet allegory can certainly be applied to Amadeus. Perhaps Forman was less concerned with hewing to biographical facts as he was with presenting Mozart as a beleaguered type of ecstatic genius who, hostage to patronage, is stifled and finally crushed by the repressive apparatus of the state. Joseph II, absolute ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, is advised at court by a clutch of prudish sycophants who undermine Mozart's achievements and smear his reputation. Whatever its loose correspondence to the late-18th and early-19th Centuries, this critique can be read as a stab at the USSR – a debilitatingly centralised bureaucracy hostile to insurgent ideas and innovation.

What is true is that after Forman saw the play, he persuaded Peter Shaffer to reimagine it in a slightly different way for his film. They spent four months cloistered in a farmhouse in Connecticut where they basically rebuilt the narrative with a "fresh palette of political references." Many major actors lobbied hard for the main parts. Kenneth Branagh almost landed the part of Mozart until Foreman decided on a largely US cast (with the honourable exceptions of the superb English actor Roy Dotrice as Mozart's father and Simon Callow as the theatre owner Emanuel Shikaneder). Mark Hamill undertook several auditions for the part of Mozart. For Salieri Al Pacino, Mick Jagger, Donald Sutherland and Burt Reynolds all lobbied for the part. Both were given to relative unknowns in the movie world.

It is, I think, also interesting that today when much classical music around the world is suffering from major financial constraints, the music in the movie was selected by the conductor Neville Marriner and performed by him and his Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields orchestra (St. Martin's referring to the name of the Church in London's Trafalgar Square where they are based). At a time when most movie music was performed for fees, Marriner elected instead to be put on a royalty. The film's huge success resulted in a bonanza for the orchestra which enabled it to build its own completely new rehearsal studios. 

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240926-could-amadeus-be-the-most-misunderstood-oscar-winner-ever

Remembered mostly for his massive affair with Elizabeth Taylor, herself a fellow drunk during their whole time together when they made the movie Cleopatra and their subsequent two marriages, he seemed to become almost a caricature of himself, his talent subsumed by a narcisism and his alcoholism. It was almost as though he wanted to be larger than life itself, larger even than the massive rock of a diamond he bought for Taylor paying US$1.1 million in 1969. But we also remember that voice - that extraordinary rich low baritone which boomed through the cinema loudspeakers when portraying all manner of characters.

Like Hopkins, his career veered between theatre in the UK and roies in Hollywood. But then he added Broadway when he successfully played in Lerner and Loewe's successor to My Fair Lady as King Arthur alongside Julie Andrews in Camelot. But it was certainly Cleopatra and all its surrounding hoopla that brought him to world attention, even though it is not much more than a mediocre movie made at massive expense. On a budget of US$5 million, its total costs in 1963 came to over $50 million, an amount so hugh it was almost unbelievable in those days. Filming took two-and-a-half years!

Arguably Burtin's best movies were the adaptation of John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Edward Albee's black comedy Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, made with Taylor. Others will no doubt add his portrayal as Thomas Becket in the historical film Becket, a role for which he was nominated for Best Actor Oscar, an award he never won. 

Perhaps surprisingly for this most aggressively straight actor, he told a good friend in 1975 that he had "tried homosexuality". He also suggested that all actors were "latent homosexuals". The 2000 biography of Elizabeth Taylor even suggests there had been an affair between Burton and Sir Laurence Olivier.

In addition to booze which almost killed him in 1974, he was a heavy smoker all his life. By then he admitted to drinking three bottles of vodka each day. I often wonder what demons were held captive in his mind as there surely must have been many. 

Rather than end with a clip of his own films or interviews, I add this short tribute to one of his friends of more that 30 years, Frank Sinatra.  Not only will it open your eyes to a part of Sinatra's life, it reminds us how magnificent that glorious speaking voice was. It would fall silent within a year. 

Now at the age of nearly 88 and with a hugely successful film career behind him that includes two Best Actor Oscars (The Silence of the Lambs and The Father) Hopkins has published his memoir "We Did OK, Kid". I haven't yet read it, and frankly am not sure I shall based on reviews I have read. I know from other books that I have indeed read that there was within the young Hopkins a rebelious streak and for some reason a deep-rooted anger. Clearly hugely talented, Sir Laurence Olivier took him into the company of his National Theatre that was just opening up in London in the early 1960s. It was a company that boasted a superb collective of actors and directors. But somehow, no matter his excellence, Hopkins was never satisfied. His anger was never far from the surface, he argued extensively with directors and turned heavily to booze. He mistreated his first wife appallingly - as reviewers highlight from his book - and had a daughter from whom he has been estranged almost since birth. He does not even know if she is married and has grandchildren from her.

While remaining a fixture on the British stage and television until the end of the 1980s, by the early 1970s he was starting to work in film. Even then, he could be 'difficult'. Famously he called Shirley Maclaine, "the most obnoxious actress I have ever worked with." By then he was commuting between Britain and California. Then came his huge break playing Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs, a portrayal unlike any other serial killer in film. Hopkins knew exactly how he wanted to play the role. in a 2016 interview, he spoke of his ability to frighten people since he was a boy growing up in Port Talbot, Wales. "I don't know why but I've always known what scares people. When I was a kid I'd tell the girls around the street the story about Dracula and I'd go 'th-th-th' (the sucking noise which he reproduced in The Silence of the Lambs). As a result, they'd run away screaming."

He finally moved to California in 1998 and there he met his third wife, finally achieving both the happiness and long-term success he had craved. He had quit booze much earlier and found much enjoyment in his other great passion, music. Few know he is a fine pianist and has many compositions to his name. 

But why will I not read his memoir? As a number of reviewers have noted, many are likely to buy the book for insights into why and how he played so many charcters in film. Yet, in the book he rarely discusses his film career. Lots of personal details, and some are certainly of interest. But the way he approached Hannibal Lecter, Nixon, Hitchcock, The Remains of the Day (for me his greatest movie role as the emotionally repressed butler), Howards End, Legends of the Fall, Pope Benedict. Meet Joe Black, The Dresser and so many other roles remains behnd the curtains. Most moving almost certainly is when he was with his father just moments before he died. His father asked him to recite something from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

“I stopped, he lifted his head up and looked at me, still baffled by his son who was so dense in so many ways but so surprisingly bright in this one”

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/anthony-hopkins-memoir-review-king-lear-nixon-b2857977.html